as a follow-up to the parrot mystery of thanksgiving (see a previous blog) i have found out some critical information. there is an article in our current student newspaper at mbi, which actually is quoting an article from the chicago tribune (chicagotribune.com) that explains our conundrum. apparently a colony of foot-long south american monk parakeets has taken up residence in chicago. the lime green birds settled into hyde park (the neighborhood ajacent to ours) in the 1970's. since then their numbers have grown and spread. it is impressive to see how well a rural bird from the Argentine pampas, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia has adapted and is now thriving in the urban jungle. even more impressive is that they have not frozen their giblets off in this insanely cold climate (by the way the temp. today in chicago was single digits).
my life is now a bit fuller having found the answer to this perplexing question. i thought you might just want to know as well.
pic: this little guy is all puffed up because it's stinkin cold here!
1 comment:
Hi Phil, Funny, there was an article in Lancaster Tuesday morning paper about the "monk Parakeets" in New Hampshire. The people there are upset because the local power company is taking down their nests and exterminating the birds. They feel it is ok to remove the nests from the power poles with transformers on them but why must they kill the birds?
So that is how we found out what they are... Dad in Ephrata
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